Mackenzie's+Point+of+Tension

Last summer was one of the biggest adjustment periods of my life: I moved across the country, and went from sitting in University lecture halls as my main occupation to standing in front of thirty-plus, street-savvy incarcerated teens. My task was to teach them literacy in Standard English—to help them navigate a five-paragraph essay, the English Regents exam, Shakespeare’s sonnets, work applications, resumes, and everything else they would be faced with in high school and real life. Ultimately, my personal goal was—and still is—to teach them the difference between seeing Standard English as the only way to write, speak, and think, and seeing it as another tool to help you get through life so you can get the things you want. My purpose was to instill the latter in them, so that they won’t be forced to surrender the language that surrounds their culture and informs their identities. What I anticipated but didn’t realize the full extent of was the linguistic and cultural barrier between my students and I, informed by my regional, class, and academic identity. I found myself explaining a close reading assignment with language like “extract,” “probe,” “analyze,” and “interpret,” words that some students knew but many did not understand in context. Meanwhile they were using words such as “kyte” and “dot,” and drawing symbols on desks that I had never seen before. I recognized that this block in my cultural literacy was also a block in my ability to teach my students anything—how were they supposed to trust me enough to learn anything from me if I didn’t understand the language many of them felt most comfortable with? The brief training I received from Teach for America taught me one essential thing: building relationships with students is necessary in order for learning to occur. Thus, I entered my school armed with one strategy I hoped would reach students, which was asking students to write me a letter each week, and either respond to a prompt in the letter or express any thoughts or concerns they want to share with me. My plan was to respond to the letters over the weekend and distribute the responses on Monday, so that each student would feel some sort of personal connection with me. The assignment was designed to be open-ended, and when I explained it during my first week of teaching I tried to emphasize this. “I don’t care if you use curse words or tell me how much you hate the class,” I told them, “I want you to use this as a creative outlet, and a way to communicate with me.” I was met with blank stares. My class contained a mere twelve students, but none of them seemed interested in writing me a letter. “You may begin now,” I said, standing in the front of the room with my arms behind my back, trying to resist the urge to cross them in an attempt to appear approachable. Three of my students were drawing on their desks. A group was talking in the back. Two had their heads down. Besides the desk-artists, no one had a pencil in his hands. “Does anyone need help starting the letter?” I stuttered. I wrote instructions on the board and modeled a letter heading. One student folded the paper I gave him into a plane and chucked it at another kid. “Did I mention I’m going to write back to you?” I said in a final attempt. No one began writing. I went home that night distraught and doubtful of my abilities as a teacher. The letters, I thought, were the perfect entryway to classroom culture—it was an assignment Teach for America would be proud of, an assignment they would write about in emails and praise as an “exemplar” for future teachers. But, for one reason or another, it didn’t resonate with my students. I decided that my population was too challenging for such cushy, emotive assignments, and resolved to scratch such activities completely. To my surprise, a new student approached me the next day and asked what we did the day before. I told him that students were writing letters to me, only not to worry about it because the assignment was over. “No, I want to do it. Can I write about anything I want?” he asked. I ended up building a strong relationship with this student through the letters. He discussed tough, personal issues with me through them and I was able to respond in a way that seemed important and meaningful. He felt comfortable sharing these details with me in part because I expressed that I care, but also because the letters were a safe, non-judgmental space for him to express himself. Because of my relationship with this student, I knew I could ask him what was going on when he didn’t want to do work and that he would tell me via letter. Building a relationship with me and having a writing outlet seemed to help this student, as he quickly became one of the most hard-working kids in my class. Though the letter activity didn’t work with all the kids, it taught me a lot about what students need in order to learn. If I want to teach well, I have to ask questions. I have to listen and through listening prove that I respect my students. I was not surprised to learn that most of my students were suspicious of teachers because they didn’t respect the language they spoke. I was able to form relationships with some students not by asserting the absolute authority of Standard English or by pretending to be in touch with their cultural identities, but by showing honest interest and a willingness to learn. I found that my students became more comfortable with the prospect of using Standard, academic English if their identity, informed by language, wasn’t threatened. As a result of this emphasis on code-switching, my perspective changed as well. For example, I learned that gangs, which most of my students are involved in, are not organizations of mindless, violent evil, but rather sometimes-violent communities that people turn to for support. I learned that the language of “that’s wrong, and this is right,” does not and should not work with my students, because who really has the authority to determine that anyway? My role as an educator is to inform students what is expected of them to be considered traditionally successful, and give them the tools to achieve this success. Another important part of this role, however, is to teach them how to maintain their identity while also performing the necessary tasks to be successful: how to “code-switch” to get what they want while being what they want. I hope to continue emphasizing this in the classroom by forming real, human relationships with my students.